2mm WW1

Today marks the 100th anniversary of Britain's entrance into the first world war. You might like to read about the valuable work of the Royal British Legion here: http://www.britishlegion.org.uk/remembrance/ww1-centenary

The first world war is a sombre subject for wargaming given the huge loss of life but it has remained popular with wargamers especially at the smaller end of the scale. This is no doubt due to the large number of miniatures needed to properly simulate even a small part of this enormous conflict. WW1 perhaps had its heyday as a wargaming era back in the days of board wargames with their heaps of counters. You could argue that 2mm miniatures are just fancy 3d counters.

Irregular Miniatures provides a good range of WW1 specific 2mm miniatures, as well  as multi-purpose ones such as machine gunners and mortars. For tanks there's the MKIV, Schneider, Whippet, FT17 and German A7V.

Some MKIV tanks at a staging post. The horse and musket scenery is a bit small for the 20th century miniatures but I think they work as farm outbuildings. The MKIV's themselves are detailed little miniatures that could be given a fascine add-on without too much trouble.

 A biplane flying over a farm. The generic biplane is large enough to paint some insignia on, another future project. This scenery tile was just a try at making different shapes using filler.

Whippet tanks moving through a wooded pass. Off to the green fields beyond? The trees are made from Javis clump foliage. A bag of which will create a great many trees, just pinch bits off and glue it on. They have a nice texture so I recommend a dark colour so you can drybrush it in whatever colour you like. A mix seems to look more realistic.

This is the IK1 infantry section mounted on a 1p piece. I painted the models in a mix of black and dark brown and then gave them a quick drybrush with a mix of white and British uniform brown from Vallejo.